Course Description and Objectives
In this second half of the Great Books sequence, we will read a wide range of eighteenth- to twentieth-century literary texts that focus on the overall theme of identity.   Specifically, we will examine how these works attempt to answer the following questions:  what does it mean to have an identity in the first place–to be a unique, self-fulfilled individual?  Does identity come from within or is it largely shaped by forces outside the individual–such as family, society, and culture?  What are the moral responsibilities of individuals to themselves and to others?  Each of the major works we will study approaches these issues from a unique perspective. Robinson Crusoe, as you probably know, follows the tribulations of an individual divorced from all outside social contact.  Dickens’s David Copperfield traces the lifelong struggle of its title character to become, in his words, “the hero of his own life.”  And the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe writes in Things Fall Apart of an isolated African village that must suddenly confront the arrival of Western colonizers.  These, however, are only several of the works we will study, and in addition to discussing the course theme, we will also consider such topics as historical movements and literary genres and periods.  These discussions are intended to further the basic objectives of Great Books II, which are:

 • To continue to develop the critical thinking, reading, and writing skills fostered in Freshman Composition and Great Books I.

 • To introduce students to a diverse range of literature from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century.

 • To explore how this literature addresses important cultural and ethical issues of its time and, indirectly, our own time.

Required Texts
Defoe, Daniel.  Robinson Crusoe.  1719.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.
Dickens, Charles.  David Copperfield.  1849-50.  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
 Lawall, Sarah et al, eds.  The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, 7th ed., Vol. 2.  New York: Norton, 1999.
 Recommended viewing: Castaway (2000), dir. Robert Zemeckis

Reading David Copperfield in Serial
On Friday, 21 September, we will begin studying Dickens’s David Copperfield in weekly serial installments, thus simulating the experience of the novel’s first readers, who read the novel in monthly parts from May 1849 until November 1850.  Dickens chose to publish in this extended format for a number of reasons, including the understanding that readers could best digest such a long, complex work over a significant period of time rather than in a week or two.  Similarly, I have tried to ease the reading burden for you by spreading out our study of the novel over the course of the semester.  Nonetheless, take care that you do not fall behind in the reading or that, should you read ahead, you do not reveal future plot developments during class discussion.   Remember also that the reading load will become particularly heavy as we finish the novel during the last two weeks before Thanksgiving.  Take the time now to develop a personal reading schedule that factors in your other course commitments, and compel yourself to stick to this schedule.  Do not try to cram 100 or so pages of Dickens into one night’s reading. You will go insane.